1 Promotion of Reading: A Whole- School Approach Maria Ng Ronica Chan Carmel Secondary School

2 Outline whole-school approach integration of extensive reading into ELT curriculum - salient factors - impact on learning: Jazzy home-school cooperation feedback

3 Background an EMI school lower Band 1 intake students: - mostly from working-class families - little English language support at home - lack exposure to English in everyday life

4 Whole-School Promotion of Reading Past: the job of language panels Now: the job of all panels, librarians, students, parents & PTA Theme : "Broaden Horizons - Be Active Readers"

5 Whole-school Promotion of Reading reading schemes for students and parents book exhibitions seminars and workshops on reading conducted by teachers or local writers visits to public libraries reading camps reading-related competitions publication of a newsletter on reading: "Books for Keeps"

6 "Ten Thousand and Beyond" Reading Competition Competition: individual & class awards Collective Effort: the target of 10,000 books

7 Parent-Child Reading Scheme (organized by PTA & school library ) a student + family  a log book student   parent: share reading orally log book: date, book title and a grade (interest level), parent's/student’s signature

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9 Books for Keeps Teachers, students, & even caretakers contribute Teachers as readers & role models Students as readers & resource persons

10 School Library provides a comfortable reading area organizes reading schemes & reading- related activities promotes reading to parents stocks books for students and parents arranges visits to book stores

11 Student Empowerment as student librarians as resource persons – Books for Keeps select & recommend books for purchase "The selected books are screened by teachers, but the school usually buys the books we recommend because we know what other students want to read.“ (Gigi, an S.5 student)

12 Effectiveness: average number of library books checked out per day (SARS) Sept Dec

13 Integration of Extensive Reading into the ELT Curriculum Formal Curriculum - ERS lessons - Project work on reading habits - Class readers - Home reading Informal Curriculum - Story-sharing corner

14 Salient factors teacher-student/ student-student dialogue: sharing stories orally & in writing integration of reading & writing: home reading meaning-making exploration of language use

15 student-student dialogue: story-sharing corner Story-sharing is "interaction of ideas between students of different forms." (Gloria, S.2) "I prefer students to share their story with us, rather than reading from a script. There should be some interaction." (Vicky, peer-tutor, S.3) "I ask them to share the story, not just open the book and tell us what it is about." (Kaiser, peer-tutor, S.3) Student Empowerment

16 teacher-student dialogue: home reading Jazzy’s home reading entry dated 25 November 1998

17 1 st March, 1999

18 Meaning-making "When I was a story-teller in S.1, I felt nervous. I was afraid of making mistakes. I didn't know how to translate my thoughts from Chinese into English. I then tried to speak, disregarding the mistakes I made...I gained more confidence, and I became a peer-tutor in S.3. “ (Jennifer, S.5) "I learned to be less shy. I had to speak clearly in order to make others understand me. This also helped my oral skills." (Catherine, S.2)

19 Meaning-making 28 th Dec, 1998

20 Exploration of Language Use "Usually we don't have much chance to read out the vocabulary we have just learnt, but the story-sharing corner provides a place for us to try out the new vocabulary we've learnt and consolidates our knowledge of new words." (May, S.3)

21 Exploration of Language Use 17th Nov, 1999

22 Impact on Learning: Jazzy Home-School Cooperation

23 Concluding remarks Reading culture develops over time Schools can - create opportunities for it to develop - encourage students to interact not only with a text, but with one another about a text - integrate reading with writing (see also Exemplar 5) - explore, experiment, & evaluate  excel (4Es)